


Shelter

by AnInternationalReputation



Category: Cabin Pressure, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Consent Issues, Established Relationship, F/M, Fisting, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Molly, Omega Verse, Omega/Omega
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 07:47:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4658397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnInternationalReputation/pseuds/AnInternationalReputation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Omegas who don't have any desire to bond with an Alpha, the world is a dangerous, harrowing place — some, however, find a way to be happy. Luckily, Molly and Martin have found each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelter

Molly is almost wrist-deep in brain when the call comes, vibrating the phone in her pocket. She swears under her breath, carefully puts down the scalpel, less-carefully fumbles off a glove — in the process, nearly knocking the scalpel from its carefully-placed position, but causing nothing except a slight jump. She gets the mobile out of her pocket one ring before it would have gone to voice mail.

"Martin?"

"It's starting."

Molly looks down at the brain in the pan, calculating the amount of time it will take to reach a reasonable stopping point before racing to a cab. "One hour," she says. "Lock the door, close all the windows, and draw an ice bath. Don't move until you hear my voice again. Have you got that?"

A beat of silence. Molly could predict exactly what's going through Martin's head right now: an hour's too long, what if an Alpha finds him first, what if he goes out of his mind. It's why she has to be firm, why confirmation is so important.

"Yes."

"What are you going to do?"

His voice is half-choked from the knowledge of what's coming, but he answers. "Lock the door, close the windows, ice bath, don't move."

"Martin?" One last thing. "I believe in you. You can do this."

* * *

 

For a long time, this was the way things were: going into heat was a humiliating and shameful experience. Having an Alpha there to knot inside you until it passed brought relief and nothing more. When they bit you, it hurt. Molly would listen to other Omegas talk about their dream mates, the type of Alphas they hoped would one day bond with them, and wonder what fantasy world they were living in. Or whether it mattered that all she wanted, sometimes, was for someone to be The One, so she could start living there too.

Or whether there was something wrong with her.

In Molly's tenth year of school, a late-blooming Omega had started going into her first heat right there in the classroom. Had been escorted out of the room by the school nurse before her state caused too much of a scene. Molly remembers feeling a deep and instinctive pull toward the girl, a desire to go after her, to protect her.

She hadn't told anyone, and hadn't given the incident more than a second thought. Why would she? Surely anyone with a heart would have felt sorry for a person in that situation. Surely it was nothing more than her natural empathy.

No one ever exactly told her. But you hear things growing up. See things. The couple that lives nearby, supposedly bonded but strangely childless. Somebody's Beta aunt with the two Omega flatmates. Rumours about underground clubs for Alphas Only, the sort of thing 'decent' people whisper and tut about while shaking their heads.

You start to think you may not be quite so 'decent' as everyone wants you to be. So one day you get curious, go online. Omegas seeking Omegas. Alphas seeking Alphas. A whole web of connections, of people just like you, reaching out to find one another.

You are not alone.

Molly had first encountered Martin Crieff through a message board — one he later admitted posting to out of pure desperation, but he's hardly the only one to let it get to that point. He admitted to suffering from a unique hormonal disorder that precluded suppressing for extended periods of time. Sooner or later he had to go into heat, and he was tired of riding them out alone. He just wanted someone to be there.

That, and he'd sounded so incredibly sweet. Molly had felt her heartstrings irresistibly tugged.

* * *

 

The most nerve-wracking part is the journey there. Whether an Omega finds Alphas appealing or not, their scent can still attract them — a fact Molly would love to have a word with Mother Nature about. The worst case scenario is some Alpha scents Martin on the wind and gets there before her. If that happens, it'll be her task to comfort him afterward. Stay with him as long as he needs, keep in contact over the next day, make certain he takes his birth control. Getting stuck with that role has the tendency to make one feel more like a nursemaid than a mate — but one shouldn't complain, because no matter how distasteful you find it, the other person is unquestionably feeling worse.

That's the worst case. It's avoidable. Close the windows to stop your scent getting out. Lock the door, because only the most determined of Alphas will be successful in kicking it down. Get in the coldest bath you can handle, because if you don't sweat, they can't smell you.

If you can do all that, and you have someone on hand — someone you can trust with a key to your place, someone who can make their way to you as quickly as possible — then heats don't have to be so humiliating and lonely after all.

Molly arrives to find the door to his attic apartment solid and un-kicked-in, and makes a deliberate bit of noise rattling the keys before she enters.

"It's me," she announces, leaving her shoes by the door and her jacket and scarf on a chair before making her way to where she knows the bathroom is.

Martin followed her instructions to the letter. The bath has actual ice water in it, and he's submerged up to his neck, shaking slightly from the stress or the cold or both. Even still, she can smell him as soon as she enters. Some lingering scent from before he climbed in, remnants of what he left on his clothes. It's light, but familiar: sweet and salty, the kind of scent that sticks at the back of your throat.

"Come on." She reaches for him, lets him loop an arm around her shoulder, paying no mind to the wet skin against her clothes. Gets him sitting on the edge of the tub with a towel around his shoulders, all the while saying things like "You made it" and "I'm here" and "You're safe now."

"Yes," he shivers. "Safe, somewhere below freezing."

Jokes are good. It means he's not too far gone. But he's already starting to warm up, and she's awfully close to him, and she can smell the pheromones radiating through the chill on his skin. She leans forward to brush her nose against his cheek, and Martin turns his head, reaching for a kiss without taking it. Molly's the one to close the gap, warming his lips with hers, feeling him relax and release another shiver. She kisses him until the hard floor under the bathmat starts to bother her knees. Pulls back smiling, rests her forehead against his.

"Not freezing for long, hey?"

He answers with something that was probably meant to be a hum but comes out more as a whimper. Molly ducks her head — her knees can wait another minute — and licks at his neck, picking up a stray drop of water from his hair. She suckles the skin, giving him just the barest edge of her teeth, until he sighs and grips at her shoulder. They'd better move.

There’s enough strength left in his legs to walk with her, so long as she keeps a hold on his waist. He’s taller than her, but only by a couple of inches, enough that he can drape an arm or two around her shoulders while his toes try to catch on the carpet. Molly leads him with kisses, one kiss for every other step. They’re nearly to the bed when the scent hits her nostrils properly: pungent, sharp, hot, enough to stir up warmth between her thighs.

“I’ve got you,” she promises, whispering. Her voice trembles, but the promise feels strong, her arm around him is sure.

She lays him on his back, leans over him as she starts to remove her clothes. Jumper, then blouse, one button at a time. Martin reaches up to weakly run his fingers over her hair, pulled back in a tight ponytail.

“It came on… sooner than I expected, this time.” Difficulty getting to the end of a sentence. He’s slipping further under. “God, I must’ve. Must’ve pulled you away from something —“

“Hush.” The word is firm, but gentle, and followed by her placing her hands against his hips, subtly pinning him to the bed.

Then, Molly swallows. It strikes her like this, now and again: the old feeling of wrongness, the lessons that have been hammered into them their whole lives, the sense that it isn’t her place. Being the protector, the one who soothes, consoles, possesses — like an Alpha — is something Omegas simply do not do.

Except, of course, that she felt the pull toward it inside her, and could only hold back for so long.

“Said to call me any time, didn’t I?” she finishes.

“You did.” Martin’s voice is getting thick, his tongue sticking at the back of his throat. “I just —“

“Shhh.” She tucks a bit of stray hair behind her ear before leaning down to kiss and nibble at his neck. After that, it becomes a haze of touch and sound and sensation. Martin’s hand curling at the back of her neck, his breath sighing into her ear, his throat bobbing against her lips and teeth. Molly letting her blouse and bra fall aside, savouring the feeling of skin on skin, tasting his sweat. She doesn’t get to removing her pants and trousers, though, before her hand is slipping between his legs, finding the opening and pressing a slender finger inside, just enough to tease before she adds another.

He comes for the first time almost as soon as she touches his cock with her other hand, looking to add that extra bit of stimulation. He arches against the bed and Molly can see the stain of bathwater and sweat he’s already left on the sheets.

Martin’s noisy when he comes. He tries not to be, always starting out with soft, short, wordless moans that inevitably get louder and higher-pitched. Sometimes, his voice cracks, and Molly bites her lip to hold back a smile and makes another mental tally mark.

Bit by bit, always patient, she feels him yield around her hand. Three fingers, four, and Martin is begging, straining for the peak. Buried up to her wrist in him, Molly slowly curls her hand into a fist — a perfect approximation of an Alpha’s knot — and holds.

She can see the fever break, the tension drain from his face and shoulders. He lies there, eyes closed or barely open, riding the crest and murmuring her name. "Molly ... Molly."

If this isn't what satisfaction looks like, Molly thinks, she doesn't know what is.

They lie together for a long while afterward, while the strength returns to Martin's limbs. She helps him to the shower when he’s ready to move, then finishes disrobing herself and climbs in with him, washes the sweat from his hair with gently massaging circles along his scalp.

They sit down in his one comfortable chair together: both wrapped in towels, Martin in Molly's lap. Molly trails a hand through his still-damp hair while his head rests on one of her shoulders.

"Molly?" Martin’s voice is quiet and sleepy. "You suppress, don't you? I mean — regularly."

"Yeah," she laughs breathily. "More or less ever since I started University."

"Right." He swallows. "I've been meaning to say — I know it doesn't matter, and it'd be really impractical with your job, but for what it's worth, if — I know it's not my business, but if you ever decided to stop — if you did, and I wasn't off on a trip... I'd do the same for you."

"Are you saying you want me to?"

"No! I mean — maybe. If you wanted to. Only if you did... then... I would." He seems to deflate a little, looking up toward the ceiling again. "Never mind."

Molly stares up at the ceiling. She’d be lying if she said she’d never thought about it — yet the offer still makes her sad. It sounds like he wants something she may not be able or willing to give. She has found control, and a way of being that is hers, and changing such a fundamental part of it could change everything.

But now isn’t the time for that conversation, and it does mean something that he offered. Something good. He’s willing to be vulnerable, even when his hormones aren’t forcing the issue.

So, when Molly turns to kiss his forehead and nuzzle his hair and say ”Thanks,” she means it sincerely.


End file.
